Layout issues

1.First issue.....It's a standard list view layout. I have placed a rectangle shape that has no fill color, and no lines (so it's invisible) over the body of the list view. I have set that invisible rectangle to be a "button" so that clicking anywhere on the row will trigger the action, which is to view that particular row item in the list view in another layout. The action is simply.....go to layout "xyz". It's super great. The issue though, is this: when I put the cursor toward the left side of the row, it's like that invisible rectangle isn't there. Nothing happens when I click on it. The cursor does not change to a finger like I have it set to do, but ONLY on the left side of the screen. However, As I move the cursor toward the right, eventually it turns into the finger and I can click. I have sent all the fields to the back, and I have the rectangle trigger button sent to the front.

This is the layout view. You can see I have the invisible rectangle selected...it goes even further to the right, I just didn't snip the whole row for this picture. I have shaded in yellow the area where my button doesn't work.

This is in Browse mode:

The invisible rectangle "button" spans this entire row, but only works toward the right side of the screen, where the yellow starts.

2. Second issue with this same layout is that when the database opens, the very first record in the list view is "selected" which means that, since this is a multi-user system, people are getting errors immediately upon login, saying that the record is being modified by someone else, when in all actuality, it's only that the first record is selected and that's the first record everyone "lands" on when they first login. How to work around this?

You are asking this in a forum dedicated to comments about the forum itself. You probably should post it somewhere like Discussions , but if I answer it here perhaps a moderator will move it for you.

1) My guess on the first issue is that if you select the button object and look at the first tab of Inspector, it does not have the same page "anchors" as the other objects. Perhaps it has a right anchor but no left, so that if your screen is stretched wider than the layout, the button won't stretch all the way to the left edge.

2) You have a script that goes to that list view and enters a field and inserts something into the field. Since it happens when people first open the file, that script is likely called by a trigger. Go to either:

File > File Options > Script Triggers > OnFirstWindowOpen or

On the list layout, enter layout mode, go to Layouts > Layout Setup > Script Triggers and look for anything with a script attached -- maybe either OnRecordLoad or OnLayoutEnter or OnModeEnter, etc.

Once you find the script, you should find what's going on. If not, feel free to post the script here, along with the version of FileMaker you are using.

Thank you for the reply! You are correct on the first issue. It was anchored to the right. As for the second issue, it’s not that I’m doing anything at all when the database opens. No script. It’s just that when it opens up, the very first record in the list view is “selected” and I want no record selected so that the error goes away. Is it possible to do that with a script onFirstWindowOpen? I should add that folks are using this via webdirect.

This is a snip of what I mean:

Notice the first record, Request ID F78, is shaded lavender. It’s the “selected” record when the file first opens up. I don’t want any to be selected. If someone logs in and doesn’t do anything at all after this screen appears…..when the next person logs in, they get the error that the record is being modified.

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Well the fact that it's highlighted doesn't mean it is an active or locked record. You can get rid of the highlight by going to layout setup and unmarking the option for "delineate fields on current record only". But that is only a display issue that is NOT causing your errors.

I would like to add that I have just tested my theory again. The first record is, in fact, selected. Actively selected, right when the user logs in. If the first user does nothing but login and simply look at the screen, doesn’t click on anything, nothing…when the next person logs in, they are met with this error upon login:

This is what I did to test:

1. I logged into my database and did nothing else, just left it alone and looked at the screen.

2. I had my co-worker login after me.

3. When my co-worker logged in, he immediately received the error (see above), indicating I was editing the record, but I wasn’t. It was just SELECTED by default as the first record on the list view.

Is there any way to tell the database to not select any record?

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I am afraid you are misdiagnosing the situation. A record can be current, and the current record can be open (in the process of being modified). There is no limit on the number of users that can have the same record selected as the current record. There is a limit on how many users can modify the same record at the same time - there can be only one.

The error message you show indicates that the record is being modified (or at least that it was opened, e.g. by the Open Record/Request script step). It also indicates that another user attempted to modify (or at least to open) the same record. There must be something that causes that to happen, and there is nothing in your description to provide a clue what that is. Since it happens at login, the immediate suspect would be the startup script. Or perhaps you have another script attached to the layout. That's for you to find out, not for us to guess.

According to the description the script may have just created a new record and it will be in edit mode. Until that record is committed there are no records run the table so the next user will also create a new record.

Here is a screenshot of the opening script. I removed the step to create a new record as someone above mentioned it could be causing the problem, yet the problem persists.

It makes perfect sense to me that when the database opens and the cursor sits on the first record in the list, Filemaker thinks it's being edited even when it's not. I have been using Filemaker for YEARS (decades) and I have never run into this issue before.

Just putting the cursor into a field does not lock the record. A keystroke or a script must then modify the data in that record before it locks.

But could their be a script trigger tripped by going to that layout? If you enable the script debugger and then open the file, you can watch every script, not just the one shared here that executes from opening the file to navigating to this layout.

And you can block browse mode access to the fields in the inspector if you don't use them to edit data on that layout.

I'm with Phil. If that is all there is to your opening script, then there is a script trigger attached to the layout setup.

Also: you'd mentioned that people are using this via Web Direct. Are you having the issue regardless of whether on web direct or on an FMP client? If not, then that might lend a clue as to which layout has the trigger.

Also, Phil has suggested a couple times that you open a debugger window before opening your file and then step through each step to see what step is setting/inserting into a field. Since you have FM17, you already have debugger. If you aren't otherwise aware of it (and so you don't have a Tools menu up top), then you can go into Preferences and enable it. The tools menu will appear and then you can open debugger.